Matthew Macfadyen has often, and quite unwillingly, been marked out as a very British romantic hero.It’s a stereotype he’s worked hard to avoid, and one he momentarily left behind when he took on the most controversial role of his career. His portrayal of a paedophile, Charlie, in the Channel 4 drama Secret Life, saw him nominated for a Bafta in 2008. Two years later, he won the Bafta for Best Supporting Actor, for his part in Criminal Justice, before what might have been his crowning TV moment thus far, playing the mid-life Logan Mountstuart in Any Human Heart.

Matthew started his career as a theatre actor, treading the boards with the company, Cheek-by-Jowl. In 2005, he was well received as Prince Hal opposite Michael Gambon’s Falstaff. Growing in talent and recognition, he worked his way through a Brontë adaptation, a Stephen Poliakoff production, and then several television dramas, before being cast as an MI5 officer in the high-profile BBC drama, Spooks.

Last year he returned to the theatre, starring opposite Kim Cattrall in Noël Coward’s play, Private Lives – applying his acting impassivity to great comic effect. In 2012, he will be once again teaming up with Pride & Prejudice director, Joe Wright, in another classic love story, Anna Karenina.